^{Democracy & Technology Blog} Reports no one reads

Here is a specific example of why we need a strong forbearance procedure to eliminate or modify telecom regulation which is no longer necessary for the protection of consumers, which proposals in the Senate and House of Representatives — S. 2469 and H.R. 3914 (110th Congress) — would eviscerate:
The Federal Communications Commission is considering a petition of AT&T seeking forbearance from the requirement to file reports detailing its service quality, customer satisfaction and infrastructure investment.
Opponents of regulatory reform want the Commission to consider whether to eliminate or modify the reporting requirement, if at all, in a normal rulemaking proceeding rather than a forbearance proceeding. The principal difference between a forbearance proceeding and a normal rulemaking proceeding is that a forbearance proceeding has a self-enforcing deadline, whereas a rulemaking proceeding can languish for eternity.

the Commission has been considering whether to eliminate the service quality and customer satisfaction reports since 2000. The fact that the Commission has sat on this question for 8 years proves the wisdom of Congress in enacting a forbearance process, which includes a “deemed-granted” clause. The Commission, with all due respect, ignores naked deadlines when it chooses. The Commission has obviously given up on the biennial review process, which is the other procedure Congress included in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to facilitate deregulation. The Commission conducted the last biennial review in 2002. Therefore, the obvious conclusion is that eliminating the “deemed granted” clause could drive a stake through deregulation. (footnotes omitted.)

The FCC’s Biennial Review home page is here.
My full comments on the pending forbearance petition filed by AT&T are here.